


Round of Days

by Northland



Category: North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell | UK TV
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, Pregnancy, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 12:45:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17043998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Northland/pseuds/Northland
Summary: Glimpses of Margaret and John Thornton’s first year of married life, through the seasons.





	Round of Days

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Small_Hobbit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Small_Hobbit/gifts).



> Small_Hobbit, it was a pleasure and I hope you enjoy this story as much as I enjoyed writing it for you!

1\. Summer

The sea carried memories on the tide, rolling in with the foam of its waves until Margaret was almost overwhelmed. The last time she had visited Heston, it had been with both of her parents, and though they had all been sad at leaving their home, they had not yet experienced either the difficulties or the joys of living in Milton. She found it unavoidable to remember her mother here; in hindsight, perhaps, affected by the very beginnings of the illness that would later take her, but still stout enough to enjoy bathing with Dixon’s assistance. And her father had scoured the shores for shells and stones and bird feathers, the little natural tokens which he found so absorbing even at home where all was familiar. The novelty of the environs here had made him as acquisitive as a magpie.

She looked over at the figure of her husband beside her, a tall dark column, upright and unbending as ever despite the strong sea wind pulling her light summer dress askew. His gaze was trained out to sea, studying the slow-moving white sails which were all that could be seen of the fishing fleet from here. The fierceness of the atmosphere suited him; though it was far different than the cramped and narrow streets of Milton, some of the same ceaseless energy was present in the roar of the sea and its cold impersonal power. He could not spare time for an extended wedding journey, yet he had insisted that they take a few days by the sea to mark the beginning of their marriage. 

And Margaret felt it was a wise course. She was still feeling her way into this strange melding of two people, and her instinct told her that for such independent persons as she and John, some privacy for the very beginning of their relationship as spouses was to be welcomed. She had shrunk away from the idea of returning from the church to the house by the mill so strongly imprinted with the personality and authority of her mother-in-law. While she and Mrs. Thornton—the _other_ Mrs. Thornton, she remembered belatedly—must come to an accommodation soon, it was a relief to her to be able to love John without restraining her affection and her smiles to the polite tone of public intercourse just yet. 

She held his arm to her side a little tighter as another gust of wind threatened to rip her light straw hat away despite the ribbon securing it tightly under her chin. He slowed instantly, and bent his head to speak close in her ear under its brim. “Are you well, Margaret? Is the wind too much for you?”

“I am perfectly well,” she said, smiling up at him and feeling the blood come up in her cheeks as it seemed every look of his called it. Every movement of his strong limbs next to her made her conscious of the way they were now man and wife, joined in flesh as well as spirit. “With such an anchor, I have no fear of flying away.”

She hoped it was to be no bad figure of their marriage in general.

2\. Autumn

It was in autumn that Margaret most felt the distance between Helstone and Milton. Here there was no “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”; merely the dark closing in on wet leaves that turned a dull rusty brown. There were no bright jewelled rose hips or hawthorn berries hanging from bare branches. The gentle grey mists that in Helstone softened the horizon and hid the rising downs here were condensed into chokingly thick fogs and cold rain that crept down one’s collar in an unpleasant trickle no matter how warmly one dressed.

All the more reason to make interior scenes more comfortable, Margaret felt, and so she turned to making some alterations that she had long thought would improve her new home.

She planned no major changes, no throwing out rooms and knocking down walls, so she did not expect them to be so fraught. The domestic difficulties which obtained were somewhat of a trial to her, however. Hannah Thornton had long been accustomed to order her son’s household as she saw fit; and though she had surrendered the keys and the reins to her daughter-in-law, it was by mere force of will, because it was the correct thing to do, not gracefully. 

To be fair, Fanny did not understand Margaret’s changes either, and she did not hold herself back from tactless words. On her first return to Milton with her husband she remarked, “Why, the chandelier is gone! I always thought it the most handsome object in the sitting room, and it gave such a dazzling light.”

Margaret merely assented that she had had it taken down and forbore to remind Fanny that it had rarely been unbagged for fear of soot, and consumed a vast quantity of candles when it was used. In fact, its light had always been too intensely bright for her; it bounced off every reflective surface in the room (of which there were many) and threw such a harsh glare in her eyes that it gave her a headache. She found the softly shaded lamps scattered throughout the large room much more conducive to comfort, for both the family circle and for giving parties. Guests no longer entered the room squinting, half-blinded by the hard light and sharp-edged shadows on everything. 

Margaret thought that she had managed to change very little, and only such small things as Mrs. Thornton could not possibly have any objection to. Our own comforts are so clearly superior in our own vision that we forget others do not regard the world through the same lenses. 

Mrs. Thornton did not value comfort, however: a trait that reflected her uncompromising morals. She was a woman who would never shirk an unpleasant duty nor seek any way to soften it, for herself or others, and her attitude toward decoration was much the same. Rooms in her eyes were meant to be functional and, as far as prudent finances allowed, fully impressive of the status of the owner. A house ought to be furnished with the best and most expensive of what one could afford—whatever the best might be, and whether or not it was to one’s own taste. Old chintz, no matter how soft and pretty, was not to be preferred to rich brocade or the new brightly dyed patterns. 

To do her justice, Mrs. Thornton restrained herself from speech. She did not criticize Margaret’s re-ordering of matters, and in fact tried very hard not to appear conscious of any alterations. But that stiff deliberate ignorance and lack of comment betrayed her dislike of them more than a mild complaint. Margaret, who had hoped that a few of her innovations might not wholly displease the elder woman, resigned herself to knowing that at least her husband liked them.

Which left him in the position of turncoat, for he much preferred Margaret’s atmosphere. Fitting though this might be (“therefore shall a man cleave unto his wife,” after all) yet it could undoubtedly lead to some disingenuous prevarications sooner or later. If Margaret asked him about a household alteration, which she occasionally did before giving orders, he set his opinion out decidedly, but only on the smallest points. Blue or red, gold or silver, damask or satin, he would state his preference; but if Margaret asked whether he felt the dining room too dark now that she had re-papered it, he would say only that he was so accustomed to the house as it had been for many years that his opinion must be disregarded. “Your fresh eyes will serve you better than mine,” he said more than once. “I am content with things as they are, but that does not mean they should not change.”

But he could not help feeling that the drawing room of his house now appeared much warmer and even, perhaps, charming; not a word that could readily be applied to many dwellings in Milton, but this room certainly approached it. While he observed the changes in the lighting and the drapery, he didn’t consider them a material part of this improvement. For him, it was all due to the glowing spirit of the woman who now presided over the place, whose smile dazzled him more than the old chandelier ever had.

3\. Winter

Winter in Milton was a hard season, softened by no drifts of snow or sodden green hills. Little snow fell and what there was soon turned dirty and dusty from the sooty air. The ground and the streets were as frigid and unforgiving as Margaret had once thought its people, who streamed through the town—in darkness long before tea-time—with scarves pulled up to preserve their noses from the biting air. Fog trailed behind them like dragon’s breath. Homes were closed in and shut tight to hoard all the precious light and warmth within; there was little cheer abroad.

Mrs. Thornton came of a generation that celebrated New Year’s Day and Twelfth Night more than the day of the saviour’s birth. As determined as she might be to live up to the moment in other fashions, in religious matters she held fast to the old ways. The deep Yorkshire pie of the north was a sustaining feast, but it was heavier than Margaret’s favourite roast goose. And kissing boughs were not a custom seen with much favour here in the north; they were seen as vulgar and relegated to the kitchen for servants to buss each other under. Margaret had not been one for kissing under the mistletoe, either, but the sight of glossy greenery wound with bright silk ribbon and lit with the warm glow of candles had come to mean Christmas to her. She missed it more than she had anticipated.

And sad memories of former times would intrude; this was the first Christmas season that Margaret would pass without both her parents. Small things called them to mind; her father’s habit of reading the angel’s exhortation to the shepherds on Christmas Eve, for example, or the scent of brandy her mother’s love of rich plum pudding. They had always marked the New Year with the present of a book of devotions from her father or a scrap of embroidery her mother had worked, sent by post. Aunt Shaw and Edith’s gifts were much more lavish—Indian shawls, lace collars, seed-pearl brooches—which Margaret admired for their cost and tastefulness but rarely loved.

She felt no uneasiness over what to give her husband. She knew without vanity that John cherished her more than anything of material value she had to give; more than the portion she had brought to their marriage that allowed him to save his mill. If he had not loved her, nothing could have convinced him to accept her “business proposition” and face the insidious scorn of many who considered him to have done the dishonourable thing and gone hunting for an heiress. So she worked at a set of fine monogrammed handkerchiefs, made from linen which she knew he would recognize at a glance as the best quality, and trimmed with plain but perfect stitches. 

She worked at other things in secret too, in hope that she was not anticipating herself. 

Mrs. Thornton was perhaps more helpful in this situation than Margaret’s own mother could have been. Mrs. Hale would have embraced her daughter tightly and wept tears of both joy and anxiety, raising fear in Margaret’s own breast no matter how positive she tried to be. Mrs. Thornton’s much more phlegmatic and calm reception of the potential news was reassuring to Margaret. She was glad, and said it; but she also counseled the younger woman that there was no hurry to lay her suspicions before John as of yet. “Some stay, and some don’t,” she said. “And I’ve never known any rhyme nor reason why, unless the woman had a weak constitution to begin with—which you most certainly don’t. A healthy girl like you ought not have any difficulties bearing at all… but the Lord does as he wills.”

So Margaret sewed at small clothes which might be for her use, or for Fanny’s; no need to declare which yet, though she did conceal them from John’s eyes lest he see them and form hopes and conclusions akin to her own, before they could be confirmed.

4\. Spring

In spring, even Milton’s bleak visage was softened, veiled in sweet greenery. Margaret’s boots were heavy and clogged with mud from walking through the fields and seeking out shy flowers tangled in the hedges. The last of the lilacs were dying, pouring their sickly sweet scent on the air as Margaret pulled a few early dog roses and tiny yellow celandine from the ditch.

Margaret smiled, and John frowned, at the sight of a group of giggling girls further along the path. "They ought to be at work at their age," he muttered.

“Oh, let them enjoy the day," Margaret urged. "Though I do admire the independence of these northern girls, I still think it a shame that they go out to work so young. It can't help but coarsen them.”

John took up the counter-argument with vigour, as he always did when they were feeling their way toward a synthesis of opinion they might never meet. “It allows them to contribute toward the keep of their family, much as you say women in the south do by raising chickens or what have you. And it spares them from the temptations that exist in a city such as Milton, which your little hamlets had none of.”

The debate continued with energy as they returned to the mill house and John carefully showed Margaret to her seat in the warmest sunny nook of the parlour, so engrossed that they forgot their audience of his mother and sister.

“John!” Fanny protested, shocked. “How can you speak of such things to your wife!”

“You and Margaret are both married women now, not ignorant young misses to be sheltered,” Mrs. Thornton put in her measured comment. “And if Margaret is to be involved in running the mill then she ought to know what to guard against with the female workers.”

“If you wish the girls of Milton to have respectable employment, then you can have no objection to my plan to employ some of them in setting up an infant school at the mill,” she gave back smartly.

“None except that it is unnecessary,” Mrs. Thornton muttered. But she felt that battle had been long since lost; once her son had been foolish enough to allow a supper club as an institution approved by the mill owner, there was no limit to the ridiculous perquisites that might follow.

John might once have agreed, but he had seen enough of the ways things changed since the strike, since he came to know Nicholas Higgins, and since Margaret had insisted on being given a voice in the management of the mill in return for her investment. He still thought it was coddling the workers, and might well make them soft, but he no longer cared if they thought him soft. They might think him led by his wife’s apron-strings if they liked. Margaret sometimes managed to see things with her strange southern eyes that northern ones for all their sharpness might not. Milton had changed her, and he had; was it so wrong to admit that she and Higgins had also changed his outlook on the world in some ways?

5\. Summer

Even early summer in Milton could be close and muggy, the smokes of its thick air muffled and stifling with heat. Margaret found it hard to bear when her condition made her feel warm and ungainly in all weathers. She still found relief in walking in the country around the town, at least for a time, but soon even that began to tire her more than was enjoyable. Her feet swelled and her breath tightened as the babe inside her grew and waxed energetic.

One day John returned from the mill to find Margaret in an uncharacteristically languid pose, lying on the sofa with her eyes closed and her pallid skin clammy to the touch. “It is nothing,” she said, hastily struggling to rise as he came in, “just a moment of weakness.” 

But after consultation with his mother, John announced at breakfast the next morning that he would be taking her to Heston for the fresh sea air again. “I hope to stay with you for a few days as well,” he said. “Though I will have to leave you there at some point, with only Dixon to look after you.” He smiled, well aware that Dixon herself would barely concede his matrimonial right to look after Margaret. 

The thick cottony feel of the air seemed to be blown away as soon the train left the station, and the deliciously sharp-sweet brine of the sea breeze was perceptible miles from the coast. Margaret drew in a deep breath and pressed her husband’s arm, ignoring Dixon’s reprimanding look. “Thank you, John, this was just what I needed.”

She was so improved that as soon as they reached their lodgings she drew John out for a walk along the strand, leaving Dixon to fuss and arrange all to her liking in the rooms. The sun was setting; its golden glow illuminated the deep chestnut tints in her dark hair and brought a warmer colour to her cheeks that had lost some of their usual glow from not being well enough to be out of doors. Mr. Thornton regarded her and found himself once again thanking Providence for the chances that had brought this woman to the the North, and to him.

He arranged a seat for her on a low rock, folding his coat for her to use as a cushion, and she used his arm as support to lower herself to it. He stayed by her side, dividing his gaze equally between the molten sunset sea and her beloved face. The tender, balmy air was no hardship in his shirtsleeves.

“Margaret!” he said suddenly, as a feature of the calendar struck his notice. “Do you remember what tomorrow is?” 

Her wide brow moved in thought and then cleared as the same coincidence came to her memory. “It is the twenty-second of August, the day on which we were married.” She took his hand in both of hers and kissed it. 

“One year,” he said musingly. “So short a time, really, and yet it seems as though I had never lived without you.” His hand tightened around hers, and her taper fingers played with his sleeve, curling under it to touch his bare wrist. 

“We will share many more,” she promised. He sat down beside her on the sand and leaned his head on her knee. They stayed there in silence watching the sun set itself ablaze in an immolation of glory on the horizon, and then the soft night draw down with vague blue darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Renata for her help talking me through this piece!


End file.
